Only weeks before the Copenhagen conference on climate change, climate skeptics gleefully released over a thousand e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia, claiming that these e-mails (which they branded climate gate) discredited not only the work of the scientists at the CRU, but climate science generally. Since then climate science has taken one public hit after another, from revelations of
A little more than a week ago (on February 13th), the Association of BC Forest Professionals (ABCFP) awarded its first ever “Climate Change Innovators” Award to Alex Woods, a Forest Pathologist working for the BC Government. The launch of this award, a clear statement on the importance of addressing climate change in professional forestry, comes just over a month after the ABCFP released a Climate Change Position Paper – Climate Change, Forests and the Practice o
The Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released the first of 4 reports that make up its 5th Assessment Report. This first report documents the scientific consensus related to rising global temperatures, confirming that humans are “extremely”, or 95%, likely to be causing climate change. Not surprisingly, climate deniers have been out in force, cherry picking pieces of the report to
Companies that are emitting a lot of greenhouse gas emissions – including Canadian companies – should take notice of a recent court decision from the Virginia Supreme Court which suggests that their insurance coverage might not extend to lawsuits brought by the victims of climate change. The Court decision, which may be followed in other jurisdictions, including Canada, held that the insurance policy held by energy giant AES Corporation did not cover the costs of defending the energy co
On April 28th Blair Lekstrom, Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources finally unveiled the BC government’s long promised Clean Energy Act (Bill 17). The Act is intended to promote the development of renewable energy in BC.
Should BC be used to trans-ship American coal to China? Who gets to decide? And what does that mean for our environment?
How my view of the world changed over the course of a fight against a megaproject
Canadians may soon know more about the chemicals being used to extract bitumen from Alberta’s tar sands, thanks to West Coast Environmental Law and our colleagues at Environmental Defence and the Association Québécoise de Lutte Contre la Pollution Atmosphérique (AQLPA).
Canada is not a super-power. We’re geographically large, but small in terms of population. And when it comes to climate change we’re used to hearing politicians say that we’re “only” responsible for about 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – so what we do to stop our contribution to climate change doesn’t matter.